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Charter Schools

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Charter schools have become a prominent alternative to traditional public schools in the quest to improve K–12 education. RAND has conducted empirical, evidence-based research of charter schools across the United States to assess how charter schools affect the student population of traditional public schools and to understand the effects on student achievement and test scores in both charter schools and public schools.

In an effort to improve public education, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama have each examined the potential of charter schools. For nearly two decades, RAND has conducted objective, evidence-based research on choice-based education reforms to help education policymakers make the right decisions for their communities.

Explore Charter Schools

This issue highlights recent RAND research on the prevalence and burden of chronic health conditions; on the economic benefits of U.S. overseas security commitments; and on what RAND is doing to anticipate emerging global security challenges.

Schools implementing personalized learning were pursuing a wide variety of approaches and students closed achievement gaps relative to national norms. Observed challenges to implementation lead to recommendations for implementers.

Personalized learning focuses on meeting students' individual needs while incorporating their interests and preferences. What does this look like in schools that have implemented personalized learning schoolwide?

Researchers examined school choice outcomes in New Orleans following 2005's Hurricane Katrina, including exit patterns of students across sectors and school types in New Orleans and the destination schools of mobile students.

We utilize state data of nearly 1.7 million students in Ohio to study a specific sector of online education: K–12 schools that deliver most, if not all, education online, lack a brick-and-mortar presence, and enroll students full-time.

The nomination of Betsy DeVos for U.S. Secretary of Education has shone a spotlight on charter schools. While charters could become an important part of a great education system, this burst of attention poses a risk that other issues will be ignored.

The achievement gap between children from the highest- and lowest-income families has substantially grown since 1960. The income achievement gap is now about twice the size of the black-white achievement gap.

Since their inception in 1992, charter schools have been a lightning rod for controversy in the education policy world. Research highlights the importance of moving beyond test scores and broadening the scope of measures that evaluate success in order to fully assess the performance of charter schools.

Both President Obama and Governor Romney have argued that while NCLB's goals of holding schools accountable and shrinking the achievement gap are admirable, the law is in dire need of adjustment. Both platforms do appear to be largely based on existing evidence from education research, with a few caveats.

In this Resilient Communities podcast, Jennifer Steele discusses the differences in policies and practices between charter and traditional schools in New Orleans, where charter-based reform spread in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

RAND researchers found many similarities between charter and traditional schools in New Orleans but greater satisfaction among charter school parents with their children's schools, as well as more perceived choices.

After Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans replaced the city's existing school system with a decentralized choice-based system of both charter and district-run schools. An examination of principal, teacher, and parent surveys found many similarities between charter and traditional schools' performance but greater satisfaction among charter school parents with their children's schools, as well as more perceived choices.

As the charter school movement has come to scale within the United States, it poses new questions about how to govern public education. With a significant rural contingent, charter schools are no longer just an urban phenomenon. Partly in response to the growth in charter schools, Paul Hill, director ...

The message of this chapter is that it is possible to expand the way we measure school outcomes to better reflect the goals of charter schools, thus providing more useful information for students, parents, school administrators, and policy makers, all of whom make decisions that influence the success of charter schools.

Charter schools are increasing in numbers as alternatives to traditional public schools, and research shows some associated positive effects on student attainment. RAND recommends that the federal government support further investigation.

Charter schools do not generally draw the top students from other public schools. Their test-score gains are similar to those of traditional public schools, but they have higher rates of students graduating high school and attending college.

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